Changes in hospital bond ratings after the transition to a new electronic health record

Dustin McEvoy; Michael L Barnett; Dean F Sittig; Skye Aaron; Ateev Mehrotra; Adam Wright

doi:10.1093/jamia/ocy007

Changes in hospital bond ratings after the transition to a new electronic health record

J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2018 May 1;25(5):572-574. doi: 10.1093/jamia/ocy007.

Authors

Dustin McEvoy¹, Michael L Barnett^{2

3}, Dean F Sittig⁴, Skye Aaron³, Ateev Mehrotra⁵, Adam Wright^{3

6}

Affiliations

¹ Partners Healthcare, Information Systems, Somerville, MA, USA.
² Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA.
³ Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
⁴ School of Biomedical Informatics, University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, TX, USA.
⁵ Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA and.
⁶ Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.

Abstract

Objective: To assess the impact of electronic health record (EHR) implementation on hospital finances.

Materials and methods: We analyzed the impact of EHR implementation on bond ratings and net income from service to patients (NISP) at 32 hospitals that recently implemented a new EHR and a set of controls.

Results: After implementing an EHR, 7 hospitals had a bond downgrade, 7 had a bond upgrade, and 18 had no changes. There was no difference in the likelihood of bond rating changes or in changes to NISP following EHR go-live when compared to control hospitals.

Discussion: Most hospitals in our analysis saw no change in bond ratings following EHR go-live, with no significant differences observed between EHR implementation and control hospitals. There was also no apparent difference in NISP.

Conclusions: Implementation of an EHR did not appear to have an impact on bond ratings at the hospitals in our analysis.

MeSH terms

Economics, Hospital*
Electronic Health Records / economics*
Financial Management, Hospital
Kaplan-Meier Estimate
United States